In 2015, the international community adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the aim to put the world on path towards a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future. SDG 17 strives to Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. SDG 17 has 19 targets and 25 indicators, including SDG target 17.14 on “Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development” (PCSD), with indicator 17.14.1 on “Number of countries with mechanisms in place to enhance policy coherence of sustainable development”.
UNEP spearheaded the development of the methodology to measure progress on indicator related to policy coherence for sustainable development, in cooperation with various experts and organizations such as the Organization of (OECD). As a result, in 2020, the UN InterAgency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG) upgraded SDG 17.14.1 from Tier 3[1] to Tier 2, which means “Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, but data are not regularly produced by countries”.
PCSD and its role in strengthening governance:
Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) is a conduit to achieve this comprehensive set of goals in the Agenda 2030. An important component of PCSD is the integration of sustainable development dimensions into policymaking at all levels. This supports shift towards sustainable governance for which accountability, transparency, responsiveness, stability, equity, inclusion, empowerment, and broad participation are the key characteristics.
In order to effectively address the integrated nature of the SDG, governments and stakeholders must increasingly work across the constituencies and to breakdown the institutional and policy silos in order to realize the benefits of synergistic actions, identify unintended negative effects of policies, and manage unavoidable trade-offs across the SDGs.Policy coherence can help policy-makers better understand how their policy choices today can affect the future, and how their choices could impact on wellbeing and sustainable development at large. Institutions like UNEP and the MEAs can play a role in providing useful information to guide decision-making in this regard.
Policy coherence and the triple planetary crisis:
Leading UNEP’s work on the policy coherence indicator, the Law Division is identifying areas and partners for strengthening policy development and to address the triple planetary crises of climate change, nature loss and pollution in a coherent manner. The overall objective is to support member states to comply with and enforce the various commitments related to SDGs, MEAs and other relevant multilateral processes.
One of the key challenges countries faces is their ability to use available science, information, and data to make policies or amend policies due to low capacities and resources as well as timely availability of such resources.
The UNEP’s Medium Strategy calls for effective support for strengthened environmental rule of law and achievement of environmental goals, in the context of sustainable development, builds on strong science-policy-practice linkages, and addresses the triple planetary crises and emerging environmental issues through strong legal and institutional frameworks and policy coherence. In practice, there is a need to support science-based policy making and ensure such policies support development of necessary legal frameworks.
Policy coherence is increasingly being reflected in the strategic objectives of other international organizations and entities e.g., in GEF2, EU, OECD and other UN Agencies. UNEP has been active at the international level in fostering dialogue and cooperation on policy coherence. On the 11th of November 2022 UNEP launched with its key partners a Community of Practice on Policy Coherence and the second meeting was held on the 15th of September 2023. In 2022 UNEP undertook work to develop a handbook on Policy coherence. The Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Handbook is expected to be finalized by the end of 2023. Outcomes of the Community of Practice meeting will also be shared and discussed at this consultation.
Enhancing UNEP’s work on policy coherence in environmental governance for implementation is therefore critical. In this regard, policy coherence plays also an important role in effective implementation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) as they are designed to address complex global environmental challenges and, involve multiple countries working together to achieve shared goals. To ensure successful implementation, policy coherence is essential at both the national and international levels.
